Organization

Singer

Soprano

Yeonji Lee

Setsuko

Hidenori Inoue

Makoto Kobayashi

Elizabeth Baldwin

Eva Crowley

Mezzo-soprano

Nina Yoshida Nelsen

Hiroko Kobayashi

Baritone

Andrew Paulson

Jim Crowley

Conductor

Jack Perla

Stage director

Cara Consilvio

Set designer

Carrie Yanagawa

Costume designer

Lynn Murphy

Lighting designer

Cedar Cussins

Anchorage Opera

English

An American Dream

Anchorage

United States

Sydney Laurence Theatre

An American Dream Perla

Approved

An experience you’ll never forget, based on events never to be forgotten. The Alaska premiere of this modern masterpiece, is set in the wake of Pearl Harbor, and the executive order authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans. This eloquent, gripping piece of musical theater relates poignantly to present day events, with local connections to our Japanese, Jewish and Alaska Native communities.

Inspired by true stories from American history, the opera explores intersecting narratives of two women during World War II: a Japanese American, and her family, facing internment, and a German Jewish immigrant preoccupied by those she left behind. Both families have secrets that bind them to each other, eventually revealed through treasured possessions abandoned and found.

Cards placed on each theater seat tell the story of one incarcerated soul in Alaska and “Prelude to the Opera” Alaskan community speakers, who were themselves ‘relocated’ to WWII internment camps, help set the stage for the opera before the curtain rises, personalizing it, shining a spotlight on our Japanese and Alaska Native communities, and ‘bringing it home’ for all Alaskans.

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew